


the cable to outside

by piggy09



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 10:45:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18119249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Sarah lets one small second of static come through the phone before she blurts “Happy birthday.”She isn’t fast enough – they say it at the exact same time.





	the cable to outside

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday...lovely girls...I'm still emo about Orphan Black

Sarah’s phone bursts to raucous life at exactly six PM – midnight in Ukraine, exactly midnight. She ducks out of the kitchen and sits down on the back porch to take the call; she lets one small second of static come through before she blurts “Happy birthday.”

She isn’t fast enough – they say it at the exact same time. Then Helena laughs. Her voice sounds like a group of crows flying away and Sarah misses her like a gunsh—or, like, a pain in the heart. She misses Helena like that.

“Shit,” she says. “You’re too fast for me, meathead.”

“Always,” Helena says. The syllables crackle over distance. “Your fault, for being born second.”

“Wasn’t born second.”

“You were. I know.”

“Shut up.”

“ _You_ shut—Arthur?” The phone hums a muffled noise as it’s put down. There’s a hushed torrent of Ukrainian back and forth, and then rummaging as Helena picks up the phone again. “Sorries,” she says.

“They’re still wired from the plane, huh?” Sarah says. She goes to pick at a loose seam on her trousers, finds there isn’t one, splays her hand flat against her knee. Delphine painted her nails last weekend, as a whole “good luck with the job interview” thing. She’s been resisting the urge to pick at polish because she feels, weirdly, like picking at it will ruin the luck. Her nails are red, which is apparently a professional color. _Dark red_ , Delphine had said. _Bright red? No, never._

Helena’s been making an _uuuughhhh_ sound that carried Sarah through that whole train of thought; it trails off into a hiccup and then Helena says, “Yes, many tantrums. I tell them I will eat their hands if they misbehave and they do not believe me, motherhood is farts.”

“Shit,” Sarah supplies.

“What is this word,” Helena says, voice flat. “I do not know this word. I would never say this word in front of my beautiful babies.”

“Good job,” Sarah says. “I’ll tell Alison you’re an angel.”

“My thank yous,” Helena says. There’s a small, anxious pause. “I don’t want to talk about Alison, though.”

“Oh yeah?” Sarah says. She watches the sunset – pink, like the inside of a seashell. “What do you want to talk about.”

“I miss you,” Helena says quietly.

“I miss you too,” Sarah says. She lets out a slow breath. “I know it’s only another week, but – yeah. Wish you could be here, meathead. Haven’t gotten the chance to smash your face into a birthday cake yet, yeah?”

Helena chuckles. Sarah feels her lips curving up into a smile to meet the sound of her twin sister laughing, and then she lets the smile go. “Really, though,” she says. “Glad you’re in Ukraine, glad you get to go back there with the boys, but – yeah, wish you were. Back here. We could watch movies or somethin’. Just – just hang out.”

“We will hang out again when I am back,” Helena says. Her voice is soft. “I know, though. Too many birthdays apart.”

“Yeah,” Sarah says. The terrible embarrassing thing is that her voice is cracking around the edges. She really wishes her trousers had a hole in them, but they don’t, because they’re professional working adult shit and they haven’t got fake rips or real rips or rhinestones or anything.

“I am happy,” Helena says. “To call you on today. I am happy that you are here, and my sister, and that today is our day, and that we did not kill each other, or die from blood losing or bullets that came from people who are not us.”

“Cheers to that,” Sarah says. She clears her throat. “Helena, I just – I wanted to say that, I, this is gonna sound shitty, stay with me, yeah?” She doesn’t wait for Helena’s response before rushing on. “When we first – at the beginning, I thought, _Christ, I’d want it to be anyone else. Anyone else._ Rachel, even. Couldn’t – couldn’t stand the thought of it bein’ you but, now, I – I can’t stand it being anyone else. I wouldn’t want anyone else. I love ‘em, all of ‘em, but I’m really glad you’re my sister, Helena. My twin. I’m so lucky it’s you.

“So,” she says to the silence, “thanks, uh, thank you? I love you a lot, so much, you don’t – you don’t know, it’s too big. I love you loads and I’m really – I’m really lucky that you’re my twin.”

The other end of the line hisses with miles and uncountable miles of static. Carefully, Helena says: “I love you like stars.”

“Exactly,” Sarah says. “Like that.” She tips her head back and watches them – the stars – the way they’re poking through the edges of the sky, like needles through the gauzy curtain of the sunset. The sky is already black, where Helena is, but they’re the same stars. They won’t ever be different stars, even if they’re somewhere else.

“You will come with me, someday,” Helena says softly. “To Ukraine. I will show you all the places that were places that I knew.”

“I’d like that,” Sarah says. “We can go to London, too. Though the shit I got up to in London isn’t really, eh, Alison-approved. For the kids.”

“Someday,” Helena says. “Not now. Not yet.”

“Deal.”

“Forever promise,” Helena says. She sighs; there’s the staticky sound of her stretching out, wherever she is. A bed in a hotel room, or maybe on the floor. “What are you doing for your birthday, _sestra_?”

“Starin’ at the phone,” Sarah says. “Hopin’ I’ll hear back. I don’t know. Go visit S, maybe, she always gave more of a shit about my birthday than I did.”

“Don’t be sad all day,” Helena says. “I will text message _sestra_ Cosima and she will bake you. This is also forever promise. Do not spend your birthday being sad or you will be baked.”

“That a threat or a bribe?” Sarah says.

“I do not make threats,” Helena says, voice lofty. “I would never.”

“Look, just ‘cause you had that one bad tri—”

“The bad cigarettes are horrible. This is end of story. No more story.” Helena growls a little bit into her end of the phone and says: “Your sisters are there for you if you need them, Sarah. You know this. Be happy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sarah says. “I know. I’ll eat a whole bloody cake for you, how ‘bout that.”

“A cake with the ice creams.”

“’course, that’s the only good kind.” Helena lets out a satisfied _heh_ , and Sarah says: “What’re you doin’ out there in Ukraine, huh? For your birthday?”

“Tying a baby to each of my legs,” Helena says. “Walking with them on my feet, so they do not run away. Eating babka cake. Not being sad all day. Maybe,” she says, “ _maybe_ lighting convent on fire. _Maybe_.”

“Meathead.”

“Maybe!”

“Helena. No arson in front of your kids.”

“I would never make fire in front of my precious babies,” Helena says. “They would be in hotel room. Obviously.”

“ _Helena_ ,” Sarah says, but she’s laughing. “I’ll put Cosima on a plane to Ukraine ‘n she’ll either get arrested for pot or she’ll shove a bloody joint up your nose.”

“Prison break?” Helena says, sounding way too excited about that idea.

“ _No_. Forget I said anything.”

Helena blows a raspberry. “Really though,” she says, “we will be spending our birthday together, in our hearts. No matter where we are or what we are burning.” (“ _Helena—_ ”) “Was _joke_ , relax, do not have heart attack like old woman. Listen. If you close your eyes, tomorrow, and think of me, I will be there with you, and you will be there with me. Even if there is no cake for shoving faces. We will be together, I promise.”

“Good,” Sarah says with a wobbly voice. “You can eat the cake, then. My stomach can’t handle it, I’m sure.”

“I will eat dream cake for you, _sestra_.”

“Love you,” Sarah says.

“I love you also,” Helena says. “Always, forever, you know this, I love you, the happiest of birthdays to you. You will win the job interview, you know this too.”

“I don’t know,” Sarah says. “I don’t – I don’t know. I tried, though. Really tried.”

“If they do not want you,” Helena says, “I will—”

“Helena.”

“Just a promise! Not a threat! I do not make threats! I would never. But if they do not want you they are stupid farts. You are smart and strong and you have worked very very hard to be even smarter and stronger, and if they do not want a person like you who is scared but also is brave anyways, they are farts. Stupid farts. Sarah I miss saying shit. They are,” she lowers her voice, “dumb shits.”

“God,” Sarah says. “I really want it.” She does: she really wants it. Just this once, she wants it, she wants to get it, she wants to have it be hers. She wants to hold it in her hands and say: yeah, this is right, I was good enough for this.

“Then you will get it,” Helena says. “Birthday wish. Birthday rules. The world will give it to you, because it has been mean to you for too long, and now it is time for it to be kind.”

“It should be kind to you,” Sarah says. “You deserve it.”

“It is already kind,” Helena says. “I have you.”

“Shite,” Sarah says. She leans her head even further back; the sunset’s nearly over, the sky is all dark. She pulls in a breath and lets it out, slow. “I should let you go, Helena. You should sleep.”

“Eh,” Helena says. “I do not need much sleep.” More rustling. “I am tired, though,” she says in an almost-whisper. “So maybe.”

“I’ll see you soon anyways,” Sarah says. “Before you even know it. You’ll have loads of stories from Ukraine ‘n some babka you smuggled back somehow. I know it.”

“I would never,” says Helena in a voice that says she absolutely would, and always.

Sarah snorts. “G’night,” she says. “Happy birthday, Helena.”

“Happy birthday, Sarah,” Helena says. There’s a soft pause, filled with the tides of their breathing, as each of them waits to hang up the phone. Sarah doesn’t know which one of them hangs up first but one of them does, they both do; the phone echoes a dull dial tone until Sarah turns it off and slides it into her pocket. She leans against the wall of her home. She stares at the stars and realizes, suddenly, that she’s filled up to the brim with happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> If you come to me close  
> We cut the cable to outside  
> It's taken years to open  
> But lately I've been close, the time (time)  
> I close the time  
> \--"Stars," Future Generation
> 
> Decided to pick this as a title, did not realize that absolutely no one knows the words to the chorus. Fun! Anyways: thanks for reading, please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
